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Monthly Archives: September 2013

I bought a book. Which was bad of me, because a. I’m not supposed to be spending money and b. I’m supposed to be reducing the quantity of books round here, not increasing it and c. I have quite a lot of knitting books (and let’s not discuss the fact that it wasn’t actually a book, but more like three books from Age Concern, shall we? OK. Good).

There’s been a blog post percolating for a few days now. Sorta. Kinda. Ish. Well.

Hell. It’s almost impossible to articulate nicely, but I can’t quite bring myself to come straight out with it. So we’ll have a bit of a lead in.

That operation? Well. N’s dad came out the other side OK. But this is a new OK. It’s an OK that’s not actually very OK. It’s an OK that involves brain tumours, of the most vile and virilent type. Of a type where they’re going to blast him with heavy doses of radiation, five days at a go, and the type where we honestly don’t expect him to be with us in a year’s time. Those tumours are inaccessible: they can’t cut them out without making a horrible mess of his brilliant brain. We don’t think he’s going to be at our wedding – and he’s not the type to suggest that we move the date so that he can be with us. And anyhow, with that sort of regimen, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether he’d be well enough in six months (should there be an apostrophe there?) time to come to a crowded public place and not risk what’s left of his health. We learned the full horror of it all a couple of Thursdays ago: it takes a while for everyone to process all of this.

There’s been a bit of mental gear changing in the past week or so. We think we’re OK with this. In an entirely this is not actually OK sort of a manner, but there’s precious little that we can do about any of it, so we may as well just get incredibly drunk to get over the initial shock of it all, and then just Get On.

Getting on involves the following

morris dancing

cuddling very new babies (aren’t they just lovely when they’re only a week or so old?)

beer/gin/tea/coffee/chocolate

running: yesterday I ran nearly 10 miles on and off-road, and then N did it all over again as part of his last long run training for the Chicago Marathon. I’m still praying that I don’t get a cold this week, as I’m not even at half way for my fundraising for my second half marathon of September on Sunday. SUNDAY!

knitting

stitchery

starting off the tax return

paying in cheques and paying the chiropractor

snuggles

making a new batch of yoghurt (the current batch has gone pinky-pink round the edges, which doesn’t strike me as being ineffably healthy)

achieving a new low of an asthma attack in the shower after a run. I can’t tolerate showers with seal-you-in-shower-screens. Shame. I was really enjoying that steamy warm shower. And then I terrified myself.

Clearing out Stuff. N took me to the tip yesterday. He’s sooooo romantic.

Curry

Guidemin

Lists

I think Mr Banks says it better: he articulated what N was struggling to, and I think it’s helped.

“I still find it hard to believe he’s actually going to die….it seems some part of me can’t accept it’s actually going to happen. I think it must be quite an important, if deeply buried, part of me, because otherwise I’d feel more. I mean, about him dying soon. As we stand, I mostly feel numb, and I’ve yet to break down, yet to cry properly, yet to feel any terror or impending sense of doom. Maybe that’ll change once he’s bed-bound and immobile, or in a coma, or at the moment he dies. Or later. Maybe this strange numbness is just a survival mechanism, to let me cope.”

Mostly, N looks after me. Sometimes, in times like this, I look after N. And you lot look after me. ‘cos you’re awesome friends.

Never is when you land up in one of the best Neuroscience ICU departments in the country, waiting to see if your future father-in-law will come through having his brain carved up a bit.

He has. He’s tired, he’s groggy, he has a tendency to drop off mid-sentence, but he’s still with us. What, exactly, is causing the tumours is still to be determined. Howsover, it was lovely to see him, and he’ll be out of ICU when they have a nice bed for him elsewhere. We are not out of the woods, but the trees are, temporarily at least, a bit thinner.

Meanwhile, I knitted. The sock has a turned heel. I had today off work anyhow, so was able to go whizzing round the countryside to be in the Right Place, and tomorrow, all being well, I’ll be back at work and crocheting him an emergency owl to keep him company.